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If you feel that you want to learn more about finance then you may wonder where to look. Whether you want to know about debts, savings, investing or something else, there are many places that you can find out information. Of course you will want to make sure that the information you are looking at is accurate and up to date. It is worth understanding about the different places that you can learn about finance and how reliable they are likely to be.

Books

Books can explain things clearly and can be laid out in a way that is easy to understand. You can pick them up when you are in the mood and put them down when you want to absorb information or when you need a break. They can be good for explaining basic information that does not change such as the differences between different types of loans or things like that. If you get a book from a trusted author or publisher then the information is likely to be accurate at time of publishing. Information does get out of date though and sometimes a book will be out of date before it is even published. It is good to read reviews of a book before buying to see what other people think about it. They will be able to let you see whether others feel the book was useful, if it contained lots of information or just obvious things and how well things were explained.

Magazines

Magazines tend to be more up to date than books because they are published more often. They may specialise though in certain aspects of finance, such as investing, rather than being more general. They may also assume that you have a certain level of knowledge. Make sure that you flick through a magazine and read bits of it to make sure that it has information that is relevant to you and that you understand. It can be easy to feel intimidated by magazines which have difficult language or look very dull and so do not be afraid to return these to the shelf without buying them.

Websites

Websites can be a great source of information. There are so many of them and you wil be able to find out a lot of things. However, the fact that there are so many websites can create a problem. It means that you will not know which are worth looking at and which are not. There is a lot of incorrect information online as well because it is not monitored or checked by anyone. You can even find the same incorrect information spread across a variety of websites. So how do you avoid reading false information? The best way is to go to highly trusted sites. The Citizens Advice Bureau and Money Advice Service have a lot of information which is put in simple terms and is free to access. Money Saving Expert has a very detailed finance website which is full of practical ideas and even has details of accounts paying the highest interest or with the lowest charges.

Friends and Family

It can be good to discuss financial matters with friends and family, particularly if they are older than you. They will be able to tell you about their experiences of finance. It may be that they have been in debt and found their way out of it or that they have avoided debt. They should be able to give you some useful information about their personal financial journey and this could help you to make decisions about whether you should save more money, take out investments or loans etc.

Financial Advisors

A financial advisor is knowledgeable in finance and therefore will not only be able to recommend financial products to you but also explain finance to you. They will be able to answer your questions directly which can make them a great source of information. However, they will charge you and their rates can be very high. To get around this you could see whether you bank has a financial advisor. They will only be able to recommend products provided by the bank, rather than being independent and finding the best products from across the whole market, but they should be able to answer more general finance questions as long as you show some interest in their products. You do not have to buy from them, but some people may feel obliged to so be wary of this as it is unlikely that their products will be the best for you.

It is worth looking at a variety of sources when you are learning about finance. Knowing about different aspects of finance and facts surrounding that is important but understanding personal experiences can be valuable too. Knowing which specific accounts, loans, pensions, investments etc are best for you is also extremely important but you need to understand the basics before you can make this decision. Knowing about fiancé is so valuable for all of us and the more you ca learn the better. Just make sure that the sources of information that you use are reliable.

If you want to take out a mortgage then you will need a deposit. Banks usually will ask borrowers to put forward a deposit so that they do not have to lend the full value of the property and it shows that the borrowers are capable of budgeting. There is usually a minimum deposit such as five or ten percent of the amount you are borrowing but there is no maximum amount, meaning that you can put extra money towards it. There are advantages and disadvantages of doing this.

Lower loan amount

Borrowing less money has many advantages. It means that the cost of the loan will be lower because you are not paying to borrow so much money. A mortgage can have a really high cost because you are borrowing so much money for such a long time and so it can be good to do what you can to reduce the cost. Although the house you are buying with the money will tend to increase in value and therefore it may seem okay to spend a lot on interest, it is better to spend as little as you can so that you can save money. Owing less money can also feel better as having a large loan can be more stressful than a smaller one. You may also be able to borrow more money in the future, if you need to, if you do not borrow as much now,

Smaller repayments or can borrow for less time

Borrowing less means that you will have to repay less money. This means that you can either repay the loan back more quickly or you can repay it over the same period of time but have smaller repayments to make. You may be able to choose between these two options or it may be that your lender will offer you just one option. This will depend on the lender. Both of these options can be good as you will either get the loan paid off more quickly or you will have more money each month as you have lower outgoings.

Less money each month

If you pay out a large deposit then you will not have any savings to fall back on. This could mean that each month you have less money available to spend as you will not have any extra. If you need extra money then you may have to borrow it instead and perhaps go overdrawn or use a credit card and this could be expensive. Therefore you will need to either be very careful with your budgeting or perhaps make your deposit a bit smaller so that you have some savings to fall back on.

Less spare money for other purchases

When you buy a house they are often things that you have to buy for it. It may be that the house needs complete renovation and you have to buy a lot of things. It is more common though that it will just need a few things done, perhaps decoration or new carpets, for example. You may find very little needs doing at all but you may still need to pay out for things like curtains and lamp shades. So even if the house looks ready to move into and you have lots of things, you will probably find that there will be some things you need to buy. If you have spent all of your spare money on a deposit then you could find that you will not be able to afford these things and you may have to borrow money to pay for them which is not ideal.

So although t saves a lot of money if you can save up a large deposit, it is wise to make sure that you also have some money left for yourself. Therefore when you are saving up, put some money in a savings account for you to use once you have moved as well as saving the deposit. Ideally you still want to save as much as possible and so if that means delaying the move, it could make sense. Of course, if you are paying rent and spending out more than you will if you buy a house and pay a mortgage, then you might decide to put down the minimum deposit and start saving money more quickly. Just make sure that you calculate all of the costs of the new house to ensure that you will save money. Look into the cost of the council tax, house insurance and also any increase in car insurance costs to ensure that it really will be cheaper and also how much cheaper it will be. Then calculate how much you may save if you pay a higher deposit and whether you will be better off waiting a bit longer.